The Kingdom of God Is Near What?

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Background
In the New Testament, Matthew 4:17 and Mark 1:15 both record that Jesus' first preaching topic was that the Kingdom of God was near. Acts 1:3 tells us Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God for 40 days after His resurrection, and Acts 1:7 records Jesus' second to last sentence He spoke on earth dealt with the time of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Sandwiched between these bookends of Jesus' earthly life you will find over a hundred references to the Kingdom of God within the four Gospel accounts.

The Old Testament never once uses the phrase “Kingdom of God”, but it does contain the concept of it in various forms. Here are just a few selections from many possible Old Testament examples of what God's Kingdom is: everything (Psalm 103:19), pre-exile Israel (1 Chronicles 28:5), or post-exile Israel (Isaiah 51:3-4). It is the last example which is tied into the New Testament's Kingdom of God, because many of the prophesies of the Prophets did not come completely true after the Jews returned from their Babylonian exile, and so the Jews were anxiously awaiting the fulfillment of these prophesies for prosperity of their nation, eternal peace, and many other blessings.

The Kingdom of God Is Near What?
When you read the Gospels, it almost seems like whenever Jesus was not performing miracles, giving moral teachings, or being crucified, He was talking about the “Kingdom of God”; elaborating on matters such as when will it be established, how you can get in, and what it is like.

Did Jesus know what He was talking about? If so, we should expect a fairly consistent viewpoint expressed throughout, as well as a meshing with the prophesies of the Old Testament (OT) with regard to this imminent Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is Near

In a previous study where we focused more on the timing aspect, we observed that Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God would be established during that generation. So when the phrase “the Kingdom of God is near” is used (Matthew 3:2, Matthew 4:17, Matthew 10:7, Mark 1:15, Luke 10:9, Luke 10:11, Luke 21:31), it appears that “near” refers to time as opposed to location, as in the Kingdom of God would be established soon. This message of timing is fairly consistent throughout the Gospels and is echoed throughout the rest of the New Testament (NT), such as in Revelation 22:7.

There Will Be a Judgement

In that same previous study, we discussed some of the OT prophesies associated with the Kingdom. The Kingdom would be established with a big judgement, which Jesus' words also support (Matthew 10:14, Matthew 12:41-42, Matthew 13:41, Matthew 13:49-50, Matthew 16:27, Matthew 22:11-13, Matthew 23:35-36, Mark 8:38, Luke 9:26, Luke 10:10-11, Luke 11:31-32, Luke 11:50-51).

There Will Be Eternal Peace

The Kingdom is supposed to be eternally peaceful, and ruled from the throne of David too. Strangely, Jesus does not directly mention peace in the Kingdom, but Luke 1:32-33 does mention the eternal ruling from the throne of David. Jesus also mentions eternal consequences, both good (Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 10:25-28, Luke 16:9, Luke 18:18-30, John 3:14-16, John 3:36, John 4:13-14, John 4:36, John 5:24, John 6:27, John 6:35-58, John 6:68, John 8:34-36, John 10:28, John 12:25, John 12:49, John 14:16, John 17:2-3) and bad (Matthew 18:8, Matthew 25:41, Mark 3:29, Mark 9:43-48).

On a side note, did you notice how often John's Gospel mentions eternal life compared to the other Gospels? While it permeates John, it is scarcely mentioned in the others. This huge difference could easily be explained if John is a fabrication instead of a true account of an eye witness, or if the other three Gospels are complete fabrications.

Parable of the Growing Seed

In Mark 4:26-29, Jesus explains that the Kingdom of God is like a man that seeds his field, the seeds sprout and grow without the man, and then the man harvests his field when the grain is ripe. This parable only makes sense when referring to the constituents of the Kingdom, not the Kingdom itself. The man would be like a preacher, the seeds the people who receive the Gospel, and the ripe grains are the converted Christians or people ripe for conversion.

This parable seems a little contradictory to the message that “the Kingdom of God is near”, because it instead suggests that the Kingdom is already here and is slowly growing. If instead Jesus had said “the Kingdom of God is beginning” or “come be a part of the growing Kingdom of God” then this parable would seem more accurate.

Parable of the Mustard Seed

Jesus provides a parable about the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:30-34, Luke 13:18-19), where the Kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed which then grows to be the biggest garden herb. That yields some interesting implications. Common explanations of this parable take a form that the mustard seed represents the Gospel news spreading from a small, humble beginning into a massive Kingdom of believers.

This parable implies that the pre-Jesus prophesies with regard to God's Kingdom were of little to no value, and instead the advancement of the Kingdom started with Jesus. And, again, this parable seems to suggest a growing constituency of an existing Kingdom as opposed to a coming Kingdom.

Perhaps even more interesting is the implication that there are other herbs in the garden coexisting with the mustard, or in other words, that there are other kingdoms which will coexist with God's Kingdom, but God's will be the biggest kingdom. Coincidentally, while it is not widely advertised, there are verses from some OT prophesies which would support the idea of multiple kingdoms peacefully coexisting with God's Kingdom, such as Isaiah 66:19, Jeremiah 33:9, and Micah 4:2-5.

Parable of the Yeast

In Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20-21, Jesus is recorded as saying that the Kingdom is like yeast which a woman worked into dough. Most Christian commentators take this to mean that the yeast is the Gospel message, and from a small source that message spreads to the entire world, or at least spreads to the Elect as represented by the lump of dough.

Consider a somewhat more literal, and more amusing, interpretation: The Kingdom of God is like a spreading fungus which converts what is pure and sweet (sugar) into something which causes some men to act irrationally (alcohol) while discharging waste products (carbon dioxide).

Of course, like the two parables above, this speaks of enlarging the constituency of a Kingdom which already exists, not about a Kingdom which was about to become established. At least this point of view is internally consistent, and depending on your interpretation of “the Kingdom of God is near” as well as the rest of the plan for the Kingdom, it is not necessarily contradictory.

Something Involving Demons

When the Pharisees called into question the authority by which Jesus drove out demons, Jesus replies that if He drives out demons with God's help, then the Kingdom of God has come to them (Matthew 12:22-28, Luke 11:14-20).

So somehow driving demons out a few people means that the Kingdom of God has come? Well, no. That's not at all what the OT prophesies predicted. Perhaps this was meant to be a warning, to tell the Pharisees that Jesus casting out demons through the power of God was a sign that the return of God ruling Israel was imminent, but the Kingdom has not yet come...

Here It Is, or There It Is? Neither and Never.

There is one final stop on our tour of the Kingdom of Jesus. It is the Kingdom of Jesus, because, as you will see, Jesus has stopped describing the Kingdom of God. Examine Luke 17:20-21:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you." NIV

In other words, the Pharisees ask when will the Kingdom of God come, to which Jesus replies (seemingly to a different question altogether) that they will not see it because it will not be in some location, but rather it will be inside people (at least for the Elect). In this sense, the Kingdom of God is supposed to be the peace and joy that comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

It is rather silly that Jesus would have used the expressions “Here it is” and “There it is” because there was no question about where the Kingdom of God was to be. All of the OT prophesies reference this Kingdom as being centered in Jerusalem. Nobody would have questioned where it was. “When” was the question, not where. Jesus avoided answering that question, or perhaps instead suggested that it already existed.

More importantly, this is blatantly inconsistent with the OT prophesies. For instance, Isaiah 2:4 talks about this peace as a worldly peace as we would recognize it today, turning swords into plowshares and having no more wars, not as some warm and fuzzy inner peace. In turn, it is also inconsistent with the NT verses which concur with the OT prophesies, including some of the words of Jesus which we discussed above.

Conclusion
When you sum all of this information up, you get an interesting picture. You can see that Christianity tied itself to the OT prophesy to give it some intrinsic credibility. However, it also worked to redefine the common interpretation of those prophesies. Anything which could be applied to Jesus was kept intact, or at least included with biased and out-of-context relation (as we have seen in previous studies). Anything relating to the coming Kingdom of God was subdivided into two components (as we have seen in this study).

The first component of the redefined Kingdom was that of a growing spiritual constituency. This component internally changes people; bringing them into the Kingdom in the sense of being residents there, or at least future residents there.

The second component of the redefined Kingdom is actually the rest of the OT prophesies which have not yet been fulfilled. This is the actual physical manifestation of the Kingdom on earth (or maybe the “new earth”) where everyone will live in peace, experience no pain, etc.

While that two-part philosophy may have worked back in ancient time, it stands off as somewhat ridiculous now. Why ridiculous? Because none of the OT prophesies prophesied any waiting period, growing period, or maturing period for the Kingdom. They pretty much suggest that the Kingdom was coming in a serial progression; a Messiah shows up, God doles out judgement, Israel becomes eternally peaceful and prosperous. In fact, when you look at the OT prophesies in their actual context, such as Isaiah 51, they tend to suggest that the Kingdom was coming when the Israelites returned from their Babylonian exile.

Think about it. Why would God give a prophesy of something that was going to happen 2000 years (or more) after a different major event was going to happen without any mention of how long it would take? In other words, why would God give a prophesy about Jesus' second coming and the associated establishment of the Kingdom in the OT when God did not provide any OT prophesy in regards to waiting for a fungal bloom to populate the Kingdom before it would actually show up?

The original OT prophesies overshoot Jesus by about 2000 years, at least so far. To put this in perspective, most Bible scholars suggest that King David ruled Israel around 1000 BC. So now, the time from when supposedly Jesus died to today has been about twice as long from when God promised David that his lineage would rule Israel forever to when Jesus supposedly walk the earth. It appears that the Kingdom of God is near never.